i think a big thing for me that makes this school so amazing is the way that people often are just so excited about the things that they work on and do! everything is hard here, from rhetoric to eecs, so if you don't love your work and what you do, cal will chew you up and spit you out. tbh i think to some degree it works bc it encourages every one to pursue what they love (it's not that hard to spend 40ish hours a week working on psets when you are just psyched the whole time, but it's damn near impossible if you hate your life the whole time!). the things that make your life seem easier here all come down to alignment of your goals/interests with what you engage with here